Support (WoW, Sunny Day, etc)

One Part of a Synergetic Core

Late Game Sweeper

I've always loved Rapidash. If I didn't pick Infernape in all my runs of DPP, I almost always found myself catching a Rapidash almost subconsciously. This fiery steed is blessed with great 100 / 80 /105 offenses, meaning it can take full advantage of the moves it is graced with, like Flare Blitz and Megahorn. The transition from fourth to fifth gen also brought it two new tools that it needs to succeed: Wild Charge to have an answer to water types, and Drill Run for pesky rock types.

However, not all is charmed for Rapidash. It's movepool is severely limited, meaning it can conjure up only about two great sets. It's less-than-savory defensive typing and stats generally give it the role of a glass cannon, it has that terrible weakness to stealth rock, and it just CANNOT handle ground types in the slightest.​

Rapidash have an odd speed, 105 base speed is really odd, but actually, it's what makes Rapidash good; it can outspeed without needing a Choice Scarf almost anything on this tier and even on higher tiers, so, you can spend the item place on a Expert Belt or Choice Band, and you can even forgoe some of speed EV's (depending of what you need) to make Rapidash able to handle some punchs, because it's defenses are more avarage than thin paper, and at the end, Rapidash can also bypass some prominent physical walls by just using Overheath, that comming from it's 80 base is actually a good punch without investment.

Rapidash can switch-in on any Fire attack thanks to Flash Fire and threat them with Drill Run, and can defend itself at some degree of Water Type Pokémon with Wild Charge, and can even deal great pain to anything weak to bug with it's MEGAHORN! Sadly, it's coverage is good, but... Rapidash doesn't have anything good at all to use it's STAB, Flare Blitz deals a good number of damage to anything that doesn't resist it and OHKO almost anything that is weak to it, but, Flare Blitz reduce it's life span A LOT, and more when we consider it's relative low-avarage HP, so, some people even use Overheat to use the STAB on place of Flare Blitz.

Suicidal sets are not bad, with Life Orb, Flare Blitz, and forgoing Morning Sun and Hypnosis/Subsitute, but it's rare that Rapidash will be able to neat more than 1 K.O per match, because it's HP, and it's tendency to being unnable to OHKO things.

Offensive sets with Choice Band are great, while defensive sets with Morning Sun, Leaftovers, and Ovearheat are pretty good, and more if you take use of Substitute, Hypnosis/Will-O-Wisp and Sunny Day. A prepared Rapidash can surpass it's weakness to water using Sunny Day and healing with Morning Sun pretty well.

Sadly, this thing needs Spinner Support to work, because you'll gonna switch this in and switch this out with certain tendency, and it just doesn't work with SR on the field. Anyway, I still like Rapidash and I use him.

Moderator

I haven't really used Rapidash until lately mainly because I'd been using Emboar and idek what I used before that but daym it's strong. I've only used the Choice Band set, and even still I don't think it really needs spin support because it's just that strong, and can do over half damage a lot of Pokemon in the tier, and that in itself is good - even if it dies after a few kills, or does over half damage to a few that definitely puts you in a good position and I don't really mind it dying if it can do a lot of damage to a lot of mons. That's probably a bad mindset given if it did have spin support it can become a powerful threat but if there's a lot of other strong/fast Pokemon in the team (or ones that aren't that strong even, and the damage done against the opponent actually matters) then sacrificing Rapidash to do a lot damage isn't really that bad.

I have used Rapidash as a part of a synergetic core, but also as a offensive mon on its own. It's strong, fast, but lacks defensive strength. I don't like using it because it's pretty weak to stealth rocks and entry hazards, and it doesn't like switching in when it's not a safe switch. You end up saccing one of your pokemons or you have to switch in against a fire user.

I would use support with Rapidash, like seismitoad or mantine to back it up, but it's quite a pain to get covered though. And once it gets going, it can still be stopped pretty quickly, although it outspeeds. I'm not too fond of it as a sweeper or offensive mon, but as a part of a synergetic combo, it can work.

Life orb is good on RDash, although it will take it down fairly quick, so I would go with heat rock or leftovers instead, but that's just my opinion, as I find it too easy to kill if you put life orb on it. It will take so much residual damage that it'll fade away too quick for what it's worth, so yeah, I recommend the alternatives above life orb.

Tbh, i dont think rapidash can do good on its own at all. Im not saying that it cant do its job successfully, im just saying that you would need spinning support, and even maybe a wish passer to allow rapidash to be succesful. Its stealth rocks weakness takes 25% health from it 0_0 and if there is spikes up, even more. in fact with all spikes and stealth rocks up rapidash takes 50% damage for just switching in.

Next problem is its recoil for its best move, and probaly the only move that keeps this thing any sort of a threat at all as a fire type, flare blitz. It takes 33% recoil damage, so killing one pokemon already makes you pretty weak from recoil. With all entry hazards, by killing one thing you only got 17% health left, meaning you cant switch back out, and you will have to die from either recoil or an opposing pokemon.

Another problem with this pokemon is priority moves. A skuntank's sucker punch can one-hit ko rapidash after stealth rocks damage, and if you try to switch from it, you will get ko'd by its pursuit. same thing with cacturne's sucker punch, sneasel, etc.

Rapidash is good if you got a good spinner, but with so little spinners around NU thats hard to do.

First post in NU!
Definitely a great mon in a core. I'm in the process of testing a team of mine with a Seismitoad/Sawsbuck/Rapidash core, and it works wonders. Just add Armaldo to the mix for good spin support and voila. However, some may say he preforms better as a sun setter, which can be true if you give it a Heat Rock. That speed and Flare Blitz along with the ability to run a Life Orb effectively with a good Rapid Spinner... Yeah, enough said. It's basically a suicide sweeper- get Armaldo (or a spinner on your own team, of course) to spin, switch to Rapidash (or die), Flare Blitz with Life Orb... Great late-game sweeper with appropriate EVs. On its own without team support, however, I see no hope with it as a lead. An EQ, which rocking leads often carry, is an OHKO if Rapidash doesn't get them first- which I doubt, as they are mainly Rock or, in the case of Torkoal, Fire type. It needs proper support, and is the "cleaning up" part of my core. Choice Band also looks good, but I already have 3 other Choiced mons in the current variation on my team and I prefer the damage over the lack of variation and general predictability. Expert Belt is also good for bluffing a Band.

Basically, he preforms all jobs listed in the poll well except lead, though I prefer him as a core member who's best suited to clean up with an Orb. I realize that most people would shy away from 2 forms of recoil + Fire typing, but, late-game with proper support, he's a true hidden gem in NU, in a similar form to Articuno- the weaknesses makes it really underrated.

Hmmmm.. That core sounds interesting. I might try to make a core revolving Rapidash. As mentioned before, it can't truly stand alone, and Armaldo is by far one of the best spinners for Rapidash, or NU in general. I was planning on using LO for Rapidash, but it's HP went don't immensely quickly, so that didn't work for me. :/

Rapidash is a pretty cool Pokemon, with its great 105 base Speed and good base 100 Attack it can deal some heavy damage with Flare Blitz. Its main flaw would have that with its Stealth Rock weakness and recoil moves wear it down very quickly. Unlike Emboar, Rapidash is also easier to check with Rock-type Pokemon and Alomomola for a few reasons. As Rapidash lacks a STAB on Fighting-type moves, Rock-types have a much easier time tanking its attacks and retaliating. Regirock and Golem are good examples of Pokemon that can stop Rapidash, and they can even set up Stealth Rock to wear down it down if it tries to switch around. Rapidash's base 80 Special Attack and lack of special attacks means that a full special set is unlikely and Alomomola can come in with no fear on Rapidash's standard sets. That being said:

This set's strength lies in surprise factor as it's capable of luring in Pokemon such as Golem, Regirock, and Alomomola and hitting them hard with a Solarbeam. Sun boosted Flare Blitz hits everything else extremely hard and Morning Sun provides 75% recovery under Sun to make up for Stealth Rock damage and recoil. Rapidash does very well with Spikes support and makes a great partner for Swellow, who appreciates Rock-types and Alomomola being lured and hit hard so it can clean up considerably easier in the late game. A Hasty nature is used over Naive to make Rapidash a better switch into Regice's Ice Beam and alongside Flash Fire make a better Charizard check. Flame Body can be used over Flash Fire I guess, but it only really serves to prevent Trace Gardy from being an Annoyer.

Running Fire Blast and full SpA investment looks like an OK option. You don't have recoil with that set, or a nature that lowers one of Rapidash' defenses since it is now possible to run an Atk-lowering nature (either Modest or Timid), giving it more bulk and no less offensive prowess as the version previously mentioned. Sunny Day and Morning sun are givens, though, on a special set, making it only somewhat of an option on Sunny Day teams which also need another Sunny Day setter.
But here, we are reaching the point where Charizard is going to outclass Rapidash. Zard also has access to Solar Beam, after all...

Rapidash can be a viable set with sunny day, but as Aasgier mentioned, Charizard will be outclassing it. The only problem I have with charizard is its poor resistance for stealth rocks.

Rapidash has got decent SpA, and it can do a lot of damage with those moves, but I reckon the normal Atk moves are a better option. These can hit like a bomb and damage almost everything, whilst the SpA move will damage less, iirc from my own battles.

If you're going to use a Sunny Day - SpA pokémon, Charizard is the way to go, except it needs support from a spinner to come in multiple times with SR up. If you don't want to have that kind of support on your team, RDash can be a viable substitue I guess..